{"id":446176,"date":"2026-05-26T15:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/446176\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T15:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:04:12","slug":"hastings-man-sentenced-to-nine-years-in-prison-for-raping-grandmother-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/446176\/","title":{"rendered":"Hastings man sentenced to nine years in prison for raping grandmother"},"content":{"rendered":"

But, she woke up to find him on her. She tried to fight him off but he put his hand around her throat, causing her to fear for her life.<\/p>\n

When she was able to, she ran to a neighbour\u2019s house and police were called.<\/p>\n

Now the man, who is in his early 20s and has name suppression to protect his grandmother\u2019s identity, has appeared in the Napier<\/a> District Court<\/a> court for sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou broke my heart,\u201d the grandmother said in a brief victim impact statement which was read to the court as he was sent to prison for nine years. <\/p>\n

The case is believed to be unprecedented in New Zealand law. <\/p>\n

Lawyers who tried to find similar cases to assist the judge in the sentencing process said they could not, and Judge Richard Earwaker said there was nothing else that was fundamentally the same legally. <\/p>\n

The rape was not the only offending the man was sentenced for.<\/p>\n

The court heard he had masturbated in front of another female relative at a different house two months before he attacked his grandmother in late 2024, and a week after he was released from prison. <\/p>\n

That woman had been disgusted by his action and had left the house.<\/p>\n

The man also faced charges of assaulting prison officers. He appeared in court in handcuffs and flanked by three Corrections<\/a> officers. <\/p>\n

The man pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including rape, assaulting a female, doing an indecent act and assaulting prison officers, after his bid to plead not guilty on the grounds of insanity was declined by the court.<\/p>\n

However, the judge said that while he had not been acting under a disease of the mind when he offended, he had a complex mental health background and a \u201cdisturbed personality structure\u201d.<\/p>\n

This included post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder \u2013 conditions that were made worse by illicit drug use. <\/p>\n

Judge Earwaker said the rape had a \u201ctremendous and profound effect\u201d on the grandmother. <\/p>\n

She had suffered not just physical harm but \u201chuge emotional harm\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYour grandma deserved to feel safe in her own home,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He read parts of the victim impact statement, in which she said she had suffered tremendous grief and loss, and told her grandson, \u201cYou crossed a very sacred line\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge sentenced the man to eight years and nine months in prison, with a second cumulative sentence of three months for stabbing two prison officers with a pencil, injuring both, making a total of nine years in jail.<\/p>\n

The man\u2019s parents were in court to support him.<\/p>\n

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But, she woke up to find him on her. She tried to fight him off but he put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2082,14322,5194,78,5158,111,43,139,37968,69,8442,51246,5161,61,1530],"class_list":["post-446176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-for","tag-grandmother","tag-hastings","tag-in","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nine","tag-nz","tag-prison","tag-raping","tag-sentenced","tag-to","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}